Cebu City Olympics fires off today

Some 15 private schools will be separating from their mother units and competing as lone delegates as the 21st Cebu City Olympics comes off wraps with a parade of participants this afternoon at the Cebu The change in the delegation composition was made by the organizers to give a chance to athletes in the public school to be recognized in this multi-sporting event as well as a chance to represent Cebu City in the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVIRAA) meet next month.

The new system has resulted to about 3,000 athletes making up a total of 24 delegations—15 private schools and nine public schools.

The 15 private schools are University of the Visayas (UV), University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF), University of San Jose Recoletos (USJR), University of San Carlos (USC), University of Cebu (UC), Southwestern University (SWU), Don Bosco Technology Center (DBTC), Cebu Institute of Technology University (CITU), Salazar Institute of Technology (SIT), Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu (SHS-AdC), Colegio dela Inmaculada Concepcion (CIC), Paref Springdale, St. Theresa’s College (STC), Cebu Cherry School and the Cebu Eastern College (CEC).

The public schools will still be clustered by units with Unit 1 manned by schools from South District 1 and South District 5, Unit 2 (South District 2 and 7), Unit 3 (South District 3 and 6), Unit 4 (South District 4 and 8), Unit 5 (North District 1 and 2), Unit 6 (North District 3 and 7), Unit 7 ( North District 5 and 6), Unit 8 (North District 4 and 8), and Unit 9 manned by the Abellana National School (ANS) alone being a specialized school for sports.

With this, it remains to be seen if Unit V, wherein UC used to be, will be able to retain its title or if UC would be able to stand on its own and still dominate the event.

Because of the sudden surge in the number of athletes, organizers have decided to do away with the competition in the tertiary level for this year due to the lack of playing venues with the ongoing rehabilitation of the rubberized track oval of the CCSC and the lack of facilities.

After the parade, the opening program will immediately follow with Palarong Pambansa gold medalist in boxing Junreil Jimenez leading the oath of amateurism and gold medalist in swimming Michael Ichiro Kong lighting the urn.

Up next will be the selection of Ms. Cebu City Olympics then the cheerdance competition, which is on its second year.

A total of 20 sporting events will be contested in various playing venues in the city all throughout the week.

These are archery, arnis, athletics, badminton, baseball, basketball, boxing, chess, dancesports, football, gymnastics, karatedo, lawn tennis, scrabble, sipa/sepak takraw, softball, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and volleyball.